Cathy's Art Diary

Enlightening online lecture from the British Museum focusing on the portraits of the king and queen of Hawai’i in the Hawai’i exhibition at the museum. Three speakers, Healoha Johnson, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum on Hawai’i, Kate Lemay, Army College Museum, and Alice Christophe, curator of the exhibition, told us the story of King Liholiho and Queen Kamamalu’s visit to Britain in 1823 and how and why they had their portraits painted while they were there. Sadly they both died of measles during the trip. They talked about the history of using Western portrait painters in Hawai’i and how this was done to present the monarchs to the world and the images were circulated via traders and sailors. They then discussed why they chose to be presented in Western clothes and how these were purchased as well as looking at why the prime minister, Na Poki, and his wife chose to be shown in Hawaiian clothes.  

Fascinating exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of works on paper by Lucien Freud. The show looks at Freud's mastery of drawing and how he used it in preparation for paintings, as an art form in its own right and as a medium to use after a painting. It also looked at his use of etching and print making. It took a wide definition of portraits based on a quote from Freud "Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it's a chair". It therefore included a wonderful topical drawing of daffodils and there was a wonderful section of drawings after famous paintings or inspired by them. I loved the accurate pictures of a Chardin and a detailed look at his painting in his study based on a Watteau and the show included the original. The drawings were used to discuss how Freud's style changed and yet drawings remained at the heart of it.   Closes 4 May 2026 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Interesting exhibition at Charleston in Lewes of new work by Trackie McLeod. The show consists of a series of fun installations which you are invited to interact with and they invite us to think about the "formative spaces of adolescence". Although, at 33 he is closer to adolescence than me, the works did make we think of equivalent items from my youth. McLeod is a Glasgow-based artists and had be chosen to compliment the Two Roberts show which was also running and it did make me think about what work they might have done if they had been born now and not in a time when homosexuality was illegal and they had to hide part of their personality. We had a chat to the volunteer on duty in the room who said how when she first saw the work she though it a bit thin but it has come alive as people have interacted with it and started discussions around it. Closed 12 April 2026

A striking installation at Charleston in Lewes by Robert Montgomery. The pieces consisted of a light sculpture from 2010 which was inspired by the loss of a close artist friend, Sean Watson. It was chosen to compliment the exhibition of the work of Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun being shown at the same time. Montgomery had also painted a work placed in that exhibition responding the publication of a novel about the Two Roberts. Both works are about how love endures beyond death. Montgomery was born in the same region of Scotland as the Roberts. Closed 12 April 2026

Moving exhibition at Charleston in Lewes examining the life and work of Robert Macbryde and Robert Colquhoun. The Two Roberts met at the Glasgow School of Art in 1933 and became lovers living together until the death of Colquhoun in 1962. In the mid 20th century they were at the centre of the art world but they have largely been forgotten now. The writer and broadcaster, Damian Barr, has recently written a novel about their life and had also curated this show. The show took us from those early years in Glasgow, through their travels in Europe then the Second World War when Colquhoun served as a ambulance driver and   they then lived in Blitzed London. It went through the artistic friends they made in Post-War London with examples of their work, including John Minton who formed a menage a trois with them in the early 1940s. My favourite works were MacBryde's bold, flat still-lives often based on the food he bought when they were living in Lewes. I also liked a section on thei...

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum tracing the relationship between Hawai'I and the United Kingdom. The show marked 200 years since the first royal Hawaiian visit to London. I'd not come across this event before and found it fascinating to learn how King Liholiho and his queen Kamamalu   with an entourage had come to see George IV but sadly the monarchs died of measles while they were here. The show started by looking at the early history of the Hawaiian Islands and their culture leading up to their unification into one kingdom in 1810. The show was very careful to document the provenance of the objects on display, many of which had entered the collection as the result of the travels of Captain Cook and other British explorers. There were some beautiful objects in the show and care had been taken to consult the Hawaiian community in London to honour the items but the core of the show was the tragic story of the visit and the aftermath when the bodies were retur...